I have been trying to solve this problem. I have a string which has a pattern. Eg.
CW1234 has been despatched to CW334545
i.e the String can have patterns starting with CW followed by any number of intergers (at max 16).
I want to replace all these patters with an empty character. So that the string will look like
has been despatched to
I have tried the following but it replaces only the first digit followed by the CW. I'm pretty new to java. Any insights would be of great help.
if(Pattern.matches(".*[C][W][0-9].*", str1)) {
Matcher m = Pattern.compile(".*[C][W][0-9].*").matcher(str1);
while(m.find()) {
str1 = str1.replaceAll("[C][W][0-9]", "");
}
}
System.out.println(str1);
You need to have {n,m} quantifier on your digits, to enforce maximum digits. Also, for replacement purpose, you don't need to check beforehand whether the pattern is there or not. replaceAll will replace only if there is matching pattern, else will leave the string as it is.
So, remove all those Pattern and Matcher part, and change your regex to:
str1 = str1.replaceAll("CW\\d{0,16}", "");
If you want at least 1 digit, then make it {1,16}. No need to put C and W in different character classes. A character class with single character is as good as that character itself (given that it's not a special character). Also, you can use \\d instead of [0-9].
You're needlessly constructing the pattern and matching the string several times.
str1 = str1.replaceAll("CW\\d+", "");
This is sufficient. All other code is redundant.
You can also opt to do the replace by hand if performance is a problem.
Your replaceAll is missing a +:
str1 = str1.replaceAll("[C][W][0-9]+", "");
The + will make the regex match any number of digits directly following CW.
Your regex is wrong. Try with:
String str1 = CW1234;
str1 = str1.replaceAll("\\bCW\\d{0,16}\\b","");
if the "CW12134" is a single token in a string or with
String str1 = CW1234;
str1 = str1.replaceAll("^CW\\d{0,16}$","");
if the "CW1234" is a full string.
String.replaceAll("CW[0-9\\s]*", "") does what you need, and it also removes the space at the end of the number.
On another note, the whole point of Pattern.compile() is that you need to compile the required expression once in the application, and then use the matcher to find occurences. So I think your usage is inappropriate (rather than incorrect).
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("CD[0-9\\s]*");occurs only once in the code and then reuse it as
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(stringToMatch);
I am trying to match a series of string thats looks like this:
item1 = "some value"
item2 = "some value"
I have some strings, though, that look like this:
item-one = "some new value"
item-two = "some new value"
I am trying to parse it using regular expressions, but I can't get it to match the optional hyphen.
Here is my regex string:
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("^(\\w+[-]?)\\w+?\\s+=\\s+\"(.*)\"");
Matcher m = p.matcher(line);
m.find();
String option = m.group(1);
String value = m.group(2);
May someone please tell me what I could be doing wrong.
Thank you
I suspect that main reason of your problem is that you are expecting w+? to make w+ optional, where in reality it will make + quantifier reluctant so regex will still try to find at least one or more \\w here, consuming last character from ^(\\w+.
Maybe try this way
Pattern.compile("^(\\w+(?:-\\w+)?)\\s+=\\s+\"(.*?)\"");
in (\\w+(?:-\\w+)?) -> (?:-\\w+) part will create non-capturing group (regex wont count it as group so (.*?) will be group(2) even if this part will exist) and ? after it will make this part optional.
in \"(.*?)\" *? is reluctant quantifier which will make regex to look for minimal match that exist between quotation marks.
Demo
Your problem is that you have the ? in the wrong place:
Try this regex:
^((\\w+-)?\\w+)\\s*=\\s*\"([^\"]+)\"
But use groups 1 and 3.
I've cleaned up the regex a bit too
This regex should work for you:
^\w[\w-]*(?<=\w)\s*=\s*\"([^"]*)\"
In Java:
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("^\\w[\\w-]*(?<=\\w)\\s*=\\s*\"([^\"]*)\"");
Live Demo: http://www.rubular.com/r/0CvByDnj5H
You want something like this:
([\w\-]+)\s*=\s*"([^"]*)"
With extra backslashes for Java:
([\\w\\-]+)\\s*=\\s*\"([^\"]*)\"
If you expect other symbols to start appearing in the variable name, you could make it a character class like [^=\s] to accept any characters not = or whitespace, for example.
I need a regex to match a particular string, say 1.4.5 in the below string . My string will be like
absdfsdfsdfc1.4.5kdecsdfsdff
I have a regex which is giving [c1.4.5k] as an output. But I want to match only 1.4.5. I have tried this pattern:
[^\\W](\\d\\.\\d\\.\\d)[^\\d]
But no luck. I am using Java.
Please let me know the pattern.
When I read your expression [^\\W](\\d\\.\\d\\.\\d)[^\\d] correctly, then you want a word character before and not a digit ahead. Is that correct?
For that you can use lookbehind and lookahead assertions. Those assertions do only check their condition, but they do not match, therefore that stuff is not included in the result.
(?<=\\w)(\\d\\.\\d\\.\\d)(?!\\d)
Because of that, you can remove the capturing group. You are also repeating yourself in the pattern, you can simplify that, too:
(?<=\\w)\\d(?:\\.\\d){2}(?!\\d)
Would be my pattern for that. (The ?: is a non capturing group)
Your requirements are vague. Do you need to match a series of exactly 3 numbers with exactly two dots?
[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+
Which could be written as
([0-9]+\.){2}[0-9]+
Do you need to match x many cases of a number, seperated by x-1 dots in between?
([0-9]+\.)+[0-9]+
Use look ahead and look behind.
(?<=c)[\d\.]+(?=k)
Where c is the character that would be immediately before the 1.4.5 and k is the character immediately after 1.4.5. You can replace c and k with any regular expression that would suit your purposes
I think this one should do it : ([0-9]+\\.?)+
Regular Expression
((?<!\d)\d(?:\.\d(?!\d))+)
As a Java string:
"((?<!\\d)\\d(?:\\.\\d(?!\\d))+)"
String str= "absdfsdfsdfc**1.4.5**kdec456456.567sdfsdff22.33.55ffkidhfuh122.33.44";
String regex ="[0-9]{1}\\.[0-9]{1}\\.[0-9]{1}";
Matcher matcher = Pattern.compile( regex ).matcher( str);
if (matcher.find())
{
String year = matcher.group(0);
System.out.println(year);
}
else
{
System.out.println("no match found");
}
Alright folks, my brain is fried. I'm trying to fix up some EMLs with bad boundaries by replacing the incorrect
--Boundary_([ArbitraryName])
lines with more proper
--Boundary_([ArbitraryName])--
lines, while leaving already correct
--Boundary_([ThisOneWasFine])--
lines alone. I've got the whole message in-memory as a String (yes, it's ugly, but JavaMail dies if it tries to parse these), and I'm trying to do a replaceAll on it. Here's the closest I can get.
//Identifie bondary lines that do not end in --
String regex = "^--Boundary_\\([^\\)]*\\)$";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex,
Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE | Pattern.MULTILINE);
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(targetString);
//Store all of our unique results.
HashSet<String> boundaries = new HashSet<String>();
while (matcher.find())
boundaries.add(s);
//Add "--" at the end of the Strings we found.
for (String boundary : boundaries)
targetString = targetString.replaceAll(Pattern.quote(boundary),
boundary + "--");
This has the obvious problem of replacing all of the valid
--Boundary_([WasValid])--
lines with
--Boundary_([WasValid])----
However, this is the only setup I've gotten to even perform the replacement. If I try changing Pattern.quote(boundary) to Pattern.quote(boundary) + "$", nothing is replaced. If I try just using matcher.replaceAll("$0--") instead of the two loops, nothing is replaced. What's an elegant way to achieve my aim and why does it work?
There's no need to iterate through the matches with find(); that's part of what replaceAll() does.
s = s.replaceAll("(?im)^--Boundary_\\([^\\)]*\\)$", "$0--");
The $0 in the replacement string is a placeholder whatever the regex matched in this iteration.
The (?im) at the beginning of the regex turns on CASE_INSENSITIVE and MULTILINE modes.
You can try something like this:
String regex = "^--Boundary_\\([^\\)]*\\)(--)?$";
then see if the string ends with -- and replace only ones that don't.
Assuming all the strings are on there own line this works:
"(?im)^--Boundary_\\([^)]*\\)$"
Example script:
String str = "--Boundary_([ArbitraryName])\n--Boundary_([ArbitraryName])--\n--Boundary_([ArbitraryName])\n--Boundary_([ArbitraryName])--\n";
System.out.println(str.replaceAll("(?im)^--Boundary_\\([^)]*\\)$", "$0--"));
Edit: changed from JavaScript to Java, must have read too fast.(Thanks for pointing it out)
I'm trying to parse through a string formatted like this, except with more values:
Key1=value,Key2=value,Key3=value,Key4=value,Key5=value,Key6=value,Key7=value
The Regex
((Key1)=(.*)),((Key2)=(.*)),((Key3)=(.*)),((Key4)=(.*)),((Key5)=(.*)),((Key6)=(.*)),((Key7)=(.*))
In the actual string, there are about double the amount of key/values, but I'm keeping it short for brevity. I have them in parentheses so I can call them in groups. The keys I have stored as Constants, and they will always be the same. The problem is, it never finds a match which doesn't make sense (unless the Regex is wrong)
Judging by your comment above, it sounds like you're creating the Pattern and Matcher objects and associating the Matcher with the target string, but you aren't actually applying the regex. That's a very common mistake. Here's the full sequence:
String regex = "Key1=(.*),Key2=(.*)"; // etc.
Pattern p = Pattern.compile(regex);
Matcher m = p.matcher(targetString);
// Now you have to apply the regex:
if (m.find())
{
String value1 = m.group(1);
String value2 = m.group(2);
// etc.
}
Not only do you have to call find() or matches() (or lookingAt(), but nobody ever uses that one), you should always call it in an if or while statement--that is, you should make sure the regex actually worked before you call any methods like group() that require the Matcher to be in a "matched" state.
Also notice the absence of most of your parentheses. They weren't necessary, and leaving them out makes it easier to (1) read the regex and (2) keep track of the group numbers.
Looks like you'd do better to do:
String[] pairs = data.split(",");
Then parse the key/value pairs one at a time
Your regex is working for me...
If you are always getting an IllegalStateException, I would say that you are trying to do something like:
matcher.group(1);
without having invoked the find() method.
You need to call that method before any attempt to fetch a group (or you will be in an illegal state to call the group() method)
Give this a try:
String test = "Key1=value,Key2=value,Key3=value,Key4=value,Key5=value,Key6=value,Key7=value";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("((Key1)=(.*)),((Key2)=(.*)),((Key3)=(.*)),((Key4)=(.*)),((Key5)=(.*)),((Key6)=(.*)),((Key7)=(.*))");
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(test);
matcher.find();
System.out.println(matcher.group(1));
It's not wrong per se, but it requires a lot of backtracking which might cause the regular expression engine to bail. I would try a split as suggested elsewhere, but if you really need to use a regular expression, try making it non-greedy.
((Key1)=(.*?)),((Key2)=(.*?)),((Key3)=(.*?)),((Key4)=(.*?)),((Key5)=(.*?)),((Key6)=(.*?)),((Key7)=(.*?))
To understand why it requires so much backtracking, understand that for
Key1=(.*),Key2=(.*)
applied to
Key1=x,Key2=y
Java's regular expression engine matches the first (.*) to x,Key2=y and then tries stripping characters off the right until it can get a match for the rest of the regular expression: ,Key2=(.*). It effectively ends up asking,
Does "" match ,Key2=(.*), no so try
Does "y" match ,Key2=(.*), no so try
Does "=y" match ,Key2=(.*), no so try
Does "2=y" match ,Key2=(.*), no so try
Does "y2=y" match ,Key2=(.*), no so try
Does "ey2=y" match ,Key2=(.*), no so try
Does "Key2=y" match ,Key2=(.*), no so try
Does ",Key2=y" match ,Key2=(.*), yes so the first .* is "x" and the second is "y".
EDIT:
In Java, the non-greedy qualifier changes things so that it starts off trying to match nothing and then building from there.
Does "x,Key2=(.*)" match ,Key2=(.*), no so try
Does ",Key2=(.*)" match ,Key2=(.*), yes.
So when you've got 7 keys it doesn't need to unmatch 6 of them which involves unmatching 5 which involves unmatching 4, .... It can do it's job in one forward pass over the input.
I'm not going to say that there's no regex that will work for this, but it's most likely more complicated to write (and more importantly, read, for the next person that has to deal with the code) than it's worth. The closest I'm able to get with a regex is if you append a terminal comma to the string you're matching, i.e, instead of:
"Key1=value1,Key2=value2"
you would append a comma so it's:
"Key1=value1,Key2=value2,"
Then, the regex that got me the closest is: "(?:(\\w+?)=(\\S+?),)?+"...but this doesn't quite work if the values have commas, though.
You can try to continue tweaking that regex from there, but the problem I found is that there's a conflict in the behavior between greedy and reluctant quantifiers. You'd have to specify a capturing group for the value that is greedy with respect to commas up to the last comma prior to an non-capturing group comprised of word characters followed by the equal sign (the next value)...and this last non-capturing group would have to be optional in case you're matching the last value in the sequence, and maybe itself reluctant. Complicated.
Instead, my advice is just to split the string on "=". You can get away with this because presumably the values aren't allowed to contain the equal sign character.
Now you'll have a bunch of substrings, each of which that is a bunch of characters that comprise a value, the last comma in the string, followed by a key. You can easily find the last comma in each substring using String.lastIndexOf(',').
Treat the first and last substrings specially (because the first one does not have a prepended value and the last one has no appended key) and you should be in business.
If you know you always have 7, the hack-of-least resistance is
^Key1=(.+),Key2=(.+),Key3=(.+),Key4=(.+),Key5=(.+),Key6=(.+),Key7=(.+)$
Try it out at http://www.fileformat.info/tool/regex.htm
I'm pretty sure that there is a better way to parse this thing down that goes through .find() rather than .matches() which I think I would recommend as it allows you to move down the string one key=value pair at a time. It moves you into the whole "greedy" evaluation discussion.
Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use
regular expressions." Now they have two problems. - Jamie Zawinski
The simplest solution is the most robust.
final String data = "Key1=value,Key2=value,Key3=value,Key4=value,Key5=value,Key6=value,Key7=value";
final String[] pairs = data.split(",");
for (final String pair: pairs)
{
final String[] keyValue = pair.split("=");
final String key = keyValue[0];
final String value = keyValue[1];
}